The Net Advance of Physics:

Resources for Frayn's Copenhagen: Werner Heisenberg

Heisenberg, in the play and in the world, is the unknown. His role in the Nazi atomic bomb project is the subject of much speculation, and his German nationalism created and creates suspicion and ambiguity. He reveres Bohr as his scientific father, but his speeches suggest a less than comfortable relationship in which the son would like to supplant the father in scientific achievement and in which the son is jealous of another German scientist, Erwin Schrödinger.

Biographical sketches:
(arranged from most detailed to least detailed)

• Werner Heisenberg by David A. Cassidy (an exhibit with both text and photographs that includes a section on Heisenberg's 1941 visit to Bohr) [American Institute of Physics]
• Werner Heisenberg by Ivan Todorov [arXiv.org e-Print archive]
• Werner Karl Heisenberg by J. J. O'Connor and E. F. Robinson [St. Andrews University]
• Werner Heisenberg: Nobel Biography
• Werner Heisenberg [Wikipedia]
• Who was Werner Heisenberg? (page under construction) by Jochen Heisenberg (Werner Heisenberg's son) [University of New Hampshire]
• Werner Heisenberg A Science Odyssey: People and Discoveries [PBS]
• Werner Heisenberg: Controversial Scientist by Michael Eckert [Physics Web]
• Werner Heisenberg and Albert Einstein by Gerald Holton of Harvard University [Physics Today Online]
• Heisenberg [Atomic Archive]
• Werner Heisenberg [Daily Celebrations]

Other Resources:

• Frayn's Heisenberg: Fact or Fiction? talk by Jochen Heisenberg at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institute
• Heisenberg visit to Copenhagen and the Bohr letters by Klaus Gottstein about the letters which the Bohr Institute released in 2002. [The Science and Environmental Policy Project]
• Letter from Heisenberg to Robert Jungk (author of Brighter than a Thousand Suns about his visit to Bohr in 1941 [The Manhattan Project Heritage Preservation Association, Inc.]
• Uncertainty Principle (on-line websites about the Uncertainty Principle) [Critical Thinkers]
• The Uncertainty Principle (philosophical discussion of uncertainty with an audio link to Heisenberg talking about the Uncertainty Principle) [The Big View.com]
• Science Jokes featuring Heisenberg [Joachim Verhagen]

• Cassidy, David C. and Martha Baker. Werner Heisenberg: a Bibliography of hisWritings. Berkeley: Office of History of Science and Technology, University of California, Berkeley, 1984.
• Heisenberg, Werner. Across the Frontiers. Peter Heath, trans. New York: Harper and Row, 1974.
• Heisenberg, Werner. Gesammelte Werke (Collected Works). W. Blum, H.-P. Dürr, and H. Rechenberg, eds. Berlin and New York: Springer-Verlag, 1984-.
• Heisenberg, Werner. Philosophical Problems of Nuclear Science. F. C. Hayes, trans. New York: Pantheon, 1952.
• Heisenberg, Werner. Philosophical Problems of Quantum Physics. F. C. Hayes, trans. 1952. Woodbridge, CT: Ox Bow Press, 1979.
• Heisenberg, Werner. The Physicist's Conception of Nature. Arnold J. Pomerans, trans. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1958.
• Heisenberg, Werner. Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations. Arnold J. Pomerans, trans. New York: Harper and Row, 1971.
• Heisenberg, Werner. Physics and Philosophy: the Revolution in Modern Science. New York: Harper, 1958.
• Heisenberg, Werner. Tradition in Science. New York: Seabury Press, 1983.

• Bernstein, Jeremy. Hitler's Uranium Club: the Secret Recordings at Farm Hall. Woodbury, NY: AIP Press, 1996.
• Bricuth, John. The Heisenberg Variations. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1976.(poetry)
• Cassidy, David C. Uncertainty: the Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1992.
• Cornwall, John. Hitler's Scientists: Science, War, and the Devil's Pact. New York: Viking, 2003.
• Goudsmit, Samuel. Alsos. New York: H. Schuman, 1947.
• Heelan, Patrick A. Quantum Mechanics and Objectivity: a Study in the PhysicalPhilosophy of Werner Heisenberg. The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1965.
• Heisenberg, Elisabeth. Inner Exile: Recollections of a Life with Werner Heisenberg. S. Cappellari and C. Morris, trans. Boston: Birkhäuser, 1984.
• Holton, Gerald. "Werner Heisenberg and Albert Einstein." Physics Today: 45(July, 1992): 29-37.
• Irving, David. The German Atomic Bomb: the History of Nuclear Research in Nazi Germany. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968.
• Jungk, Robert. Brighter than a Thousand Suns: a Personal History of the Atomic Physicists. James Cleugh, trans. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1958.
• Kurzman, Dan. Blood and Water: Sabotaging Hitler's Bomb. New York: Henry Holt, 1997.
• Polkinghorne, J. C. Quantum Theory: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Powers, Thomas. Heisenberg's War: the Secret History of the German Bomb. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.
• Rose, Paul Lawrence. Heisenberg and the Nazi Atomic Bomb Project: a Study in German Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
• Walker, Mark. Nazi Science: Truth, Myth, and the German Atomic Bomb. New York: Plenum Press, 1995.

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